Grit Lab Report

Hi Jackson,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were universalism, security, and achievement.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.

You said your top three talents were social, verbal, and kinesthetic.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a general intuition (but nothing specific yet) about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to get summer 2025 internship .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Get A on midterm .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said I achieve temporary happiness .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Procrastinating .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I enter the GSR, I will take my practice test .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in Athletic .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt Excited when receiving critical feedback, and Excited when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling a lot of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being midterms .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as Health .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to Other .

In one word, you said it made you feel Happy .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

Anyone can have grit
Interest is not something that you just find immediately and THERE IS NO RUSH
Plan A isn't the be all end all
Goal heiarchy
Can't just make a goal and hope u do it
No master of anything was just born w that skill - they had to put in the time and work toward it
Ask for advice over feedback
Stree is what gives us the ability to act in r most pivotal moments
Habits are essential for success
PUT TIME INTO PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
5 mins I Al it take

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Maeve Gonter
Jackson! Sitting next to you for the first half of the semester was truly a treat. Poking fun at how seriously you took the quizzes always made me laugh. You’re quick to joke and even though I do think it’s the sophomore in you, you genuinely take school and your future so seriously. I’ve admired the way you haven’t been the typical Whartonite and are working to do more than just Big 4 consulting in the long run (even if you might do it in the short run). You are a really sweet kid and I know you’re going to succeed in the future, even if it’s not with origami. Which brings me to one of the only of the 25 presentations I watched that made me laugh out loud. The “NO!” in all caps and red font on the screen just really did it for me. I think it was very brave of you to genuinely say you had no interest in pursuing your hobby in front of everyone—figuring out what you don’t like is so important (you might’ve heard that before?) and hell good for you. So what I will say is I’m so excited for you to find something you do want to stick with but that your demonstration of perseverance and your ability to pivot to still finish an assignment was impressive.
Jai Smith
Jackson displays a genuine down-to-earth demeanor and consistently proves himself as an attentive listener, particularly in our team discussions. As fellow sophomores, our shared experiences at Grit Lab far surpassed initial expectations. In every team meeting, Jackson always shared humorous anecdotes and our conversations, leaving everyone laughing. Jackson always made a thoughtful effort to check-in on me. Despite Grit Lab only occurring once a week, his efforts about my well-being and classes demonstrated a caring nature that I deeply valued. During the latter part of our class when we switched seats for pair discussions, Jackson and I engaged in insightful conversations that always concluded with shared laughter. This ability to find humor even in intense discussions added depth to our connection. Jackson, it has truly been a pleasure getting to know you better! I truly appreciated Jackson's honesty regarding his commitment to completing his project. He serves as a genuine example of someone unwilling to compel himself into undertaking something he lacks genuine interest in. Reflecting on my own discovery project, I too grappled with uncertainty about whether to persevere due to limited resources. Jackson's openness and honesty have been instrumental in guiding me towards a more truthful introspection. In the realm of this discovery project, Jackson embodies the essence of resilience. Despite grappling with the search for motivation to see his project through, he exhibited one of the Hard Thing Rules, and not succumbing to the challenges on difficult days. He persevered until the project's conclusion, ultimately deciding not to continue with origami. His commitment to facing the difficulty head-on is a testament to one of the fundamental principles of tackling challenging endeavors.
Ambika Gaur
Jackson brought kindness, laughter, support, and warmth to every class. Watching Jackson open up and reveal more parts of his personality to the group as the semester progressed was so special and exciting to see. At one point in the semester, he started running to McClelland during one of the breaks to grab a quick dinner. One class, in a half-joking way, I asked him if he would bring me a sushi next time (not really expecting him to remember), and the next class, he asked me which one I wanted and brought me a sushi. This thoughtfulness and caring nature is just who he is. Jackson would remember details that each one of us had said from previous classes, and would remember to follow up with us and ask about them at subsequent classes. I remember one class I had mentioned how I was confused about some feedback I had received in another class and how I needed to talk with the TA. The next class, he remembered this and made a point to ask me if I got it sorted out, just as a check-in, which made me feel valued. He really made everyone feel heard and added the best sarcastic humor that would always make us laugh, and showed genuine interest in each one of our lives in a way that made everyone want to share. It has been an absolute pleasure and lots of fun getting to know Jackson this semester. From his Discovery Project presentation, I got to see another side of Jackson: his meticulousness and patience. Hearing about how he navigated boredom or setbacks during his semester of learning Origami, and hearing his justification about how he wanted to build his perseverance through this project highlighted his strong character. It was also refreshing that he was one of very few who was honest and open in saying he would not continue with his Discovery Project topic. I really valued his takeaway that it is okay to quit early when you know something is not working.

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.